​Ammar Al-Noaimi displays the scars of the injuries (pictured above) he sustained after he was kidnapped by militiamen in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad back in 2012.

Donning civilian clothing, his captors stormed the garage where Al-Noaimi practiced carpentry, and held the thirty-two year old at gun point. In a recently conducted interview with FRB, Al-Noaimi described the scene in which he was "surrounded by ten men, each of whom bore arms”.

"They approached slowly, asking whether I was Ammar, to which I responded 'yes', but before I could make sense of anything” Ammar said,"I was being held down by two men while another handcuffed me".

Earlier this week FRB spoke to Ammar Al-Noaimi, an ex-detainee who was apprehended and beaten by armed militiamen four years ago. Despite his brush with death, Al-Noaimi continues to face an uncertain future even after his escape from Iraq.

In wake of Arab Spring, Iran's backing of foreign militias has drawn much attention. Why is this support so central to Iranian foreign policy?At a military parade commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War, the chief of the Iranian armed forces spoke clearly and bluntly. Tehran holds sway over five Arab countries.

Major General Mohammed Bagheri listed them as Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. Their enemy, as Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif controversially wrote in the New York Times last month, is Wahhabism, the ultraorthodox brand of Sunni Islam propagated by Saudi Arabia.

In some of these countries, like Lebanon, Iran has a long history. In others, such as Yemen, they have only recently involved themselves. The Palestinian cause, and by extension enmity to Israel, is a cornerstone of the theocratic regime’s domestic legitimacy.

In recent years, however, it has been Syria and Iraq that have dominated global headlines and Iranian foreign policy. Damascus and Baghdad, historically the twin capitals of the Sunni Islamic caliphate, are now under the control of predominately Shia Iran – a twist not lost on large swathes of the local population.

​The British prime minister, Theresa May has responded to criticism over the high payouts to war victims in Iraq and Afghanistan and has vowed to protect the UK armed forces by suspending the European Convention for Human Rights where necessary to avoid paying compensation.

May has come under increasing pressure from her ruling Conservative Party who are angry that the government has spent millions of pounds on what they claimed were ‘spurious’ legal cases.

The claims follow alleged systematic abuses carried out by British forces after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the invasion of Afghanistan two years earlier. Since 2004, it’s reported that the Defence Ministry has spent £100m on Iraqi-related investigations, enquiries and compensation.

​The UK Defence Minister, Michael Fallon said the British legal system had been abused to make false claims against British troops on an ‘industrial’ scale.

​The coming military offensive against the Islamic State in Mosul is anticipated to be long and difficult, resulting in the likely displacement of thousands of people and a humanitarian crisis affecting over a million. The battle for Mosul looms against the backdrop of escalating regional ethno-sectarian hostilities, which are bound to be exacerbated as the competing interests of the Iraqi Security Forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, Iran and Iranian-backed Shiite militias, Sunni fighters, and the U.S. all converge on the ISIS stronghold.

Beyond the battle itself, a political plan for reintegrating Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and securing their future remains elusive, leading many to question what will fill the vacuum once the Islamic State is destroyed in the city.

​Given the rolling political and governing crises in nearby Kurdistan and in Iraq as a whole, and now also in Turkey, it is not clear if key U.S. allies are prepared to cope with the post-Mosul fallout and other long-term challenges.

On September 9, Hudson Institute convened a panel discussion with Dlawer Ala’Aldeen, Michael Pregent, Dylan O’Driscoll, Bilal Wahab, and Eric Brown. These speakers discussed the prospects for Kurdistan and Iraq on the eve of the Mosul offensive as well as policy approaches that the next U.S. administration should consider to help Mosul recover and to bolster its most important regional allies.

A member of Iraqi counter-terrorism forces stands guard near Islamic State group militant graffiti in Fallujah, Iraq, in June. (Hadi Mizban/Associated Press)

​AN ASSAULT by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Mosul, the largest stronghold of the Islamic State, is expected within weeks — far sooner than seemed likely a few months ago. Unfortunately, the acceleration is not good news.

​The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is rushing the operation forward even though it lacks a strategy to secure and govern the multiethnic city of roughly 1 million people once the terrorists are driven out. It is recruiting sectarian militia forces that have a record of abusing civilians and seizing territory for themselves. Plans for protecting refugees, who may number in the hundreds of thousands, are sketchy.

In short, the Mosul offensive is setting the stage for a potentially catastrophic Day After problem. Though the United States has painfully experienced what such poor preparation can lead to, in Baghdad in 2003 and Libya a decade later, it is pushing the Abadi government to move still faster.

Military experts are more concerned about the aftermath than the fight itself. Brig. Gen. William F. Mullen, who was deputy commander for U.S. operations in Iraq until June, predicted last week that Islamic State defenses in Mosul could collapse quickly. “And then what?” he asked at a forum at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Iraqi government’s plan, he said, amounts to “chips will fall and we’ll sort it out when we get to that.”

​​The city of Fallujah is now a “giant prison”, it has been claimed by a member of an Iraqi civil society group dedicated to reporting on its stability. Abdulqadir Al-Jumaili of the Falluja Stability Cell, also denounced government efforts to bring internally displaced people (IDPs) back to their homes, Al Jazeera reported earlier this week.

IDPs, explained Al-Jumaili, are barred from moving about the city freely, and there is a “lack of fundamental services” in Fallujah. He suggested that it is being subjected to a process of ghettoisation by the government in Baghdad.

​Those IDPs who returned to the war-ravaged city after fighting between Iraqi government and Daesh ended in June were subsequently not allowed to leave, he pointed out. Similarly, he noted, the owners of bakeries and other small businesses were prevented from restarting commercial activity, further crippling efforts to restore normality in the city.

Al-Jumaili’s comments were supported by the chief of the Iraqi Tribal Council, Yahya Al-Sunbul, who said that the situation faced by IDPs hoping to return to their homes in Fallujah is extremely difficult. “There is unexploded ordnance… on the city’s main road,” he claimed. The supposedly safe corridors that the Iraqi government opened for returning refugees are thus anything but safe, he added, causing “hysteria” amongst the IDPs.

​The former British foreign secretary said a 'silver lining' of Brexit was that it would reduce media attention on the Chilcot report.

Former British foreign secretary Jack Straw privately expressed relief that Brexit distracted media attention away from Sir John Chilcot’s damning report into the Iraq war, according to emails leaked on Tuesday.

Emails between Straw and former US secretary of state Colin Powell were obtained by DC Leaks – a website that reportedly has links with Russian intelligence.

Straw and Powell were in office during and in the run up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, and both men played a key role in the launching of a war that led to the violent deaths of more than 250,000 people.

Ahmad Husni Shwahneh was arrested by Iraqi authorities almost a year ago and charged with working with militant factions. However, reports were unclear as to whether or not these groups were related to Daesh, nor what evidence Iraq had against the youth.

Shwahneh, who also holds Jordanian nationality and lived in the Hashemite Kingdom with his family, was executed by hanging. An Iraqi court authorised his execution which was carried out before his family were informed.

His family have stated that they will be conducting his funeral in Jordan, with his extended family from the West Bank town of Qalqilya holding a remembrance service.

New questions emerge on several billions paid out to Iran by Obama admin.

​Iran may have received an additional $33.6 billion in secret cash and gold payments facilitated by the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016, according to testimony provided before Congress by an expert on last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

Between January 2014 and July 2015, when the Obama administration was hammering out the final details of the nuclear accord, Iran was paid $700 million every month from funds that had previously been frozen by U.S. sanctions.

A total of $11.9 billion was ultimately paid to Iran, but the details surrounding these payments remain shrouded in mystery, according to Mark Dubowitz, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.